21 July 2011

The Liturgical Problem in a Nutshell

I post this little "gem", word-for-word, from an entry in the bulletin of a parish in the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. I can only hope the author's description of the "post-Vatican II" Mass is at least as inaccurate as his description of the "pre-Vatican II" Mass. I leave it for you to decide. I'll be the "audience":_____________________New Translation

"Liturgy Means..."

Your view and lived reality of liturgy will depend on your age. Let us say if you were born before 1948, you are Pre-Vatican II. Those born between, 1949-1970, are Vatican II. Those born after 1970 are experiencing the changes of liturgy without experiencing a pre-Vatican liturgy! What are the challenges facing all of us today facing the current "word" changes. To have people embrace it fully and pray, will take time, but it is possible. We can't concentrate on the changes and forget to pray, we must always be a Church of prayer. Use this image to help: you have a director, actor and audience. Pre-Vatican II people saw the director as God, actor as priest, and audience as the people. Now, Post-Vatican II sees the director as priest, actors as the people, and the audience is God. Have you changed your mind set, from being audience to being actors? "Liturgy" means the work of the people. Therefore, we need to "work", we just don't come to the Church and observe!!!

This priest, in his own twisted way, is quite correct up to a point. Buckminster Fuller said, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." This in a nutshell is Vatican II, that alternate reality intended to make the old reality (Roman Catholicism) obsolete. This is not a mere matter of unintended consequences or misapplication or a failure to enact, this is true revolution in its purest form.

I'll stick up for this poor misguided lamb. Of course his theology of the Mass is wrong! But his chronology is more or less correct. In addition he got one thing right: in the TLM God is large and in charge, in the Novus Ordo, well not so much, or at least that's how it seems.

I get the feeling that this guy's heart is in the right place because he wants to learn. If the TLM is ever going to return to its rightful place it will depend on people like this guy, that is Catholics who are willing to learn.

Unfortunately the problem with the article is that the focus is on the people. Not on God. It's all about "ME."

Ask most Catholics what confirmation is. I can almost guarantee that the answer will be something along the lines of "It's me confirming my Faith in God." Not "It's God imprinting me with the Holy Spirit."

"They also serve who only stand and wait", John Milton "On his blindness". The novus ordo is a liturgy of the active. Not everyone has the capacity to be active and the new liturgy leaves this out to a fault. The use of the rosary has gone to a minimum. I am aware of an incident chronicled in the P-D 5-10 years ago of a black grandmother who was executed by gang members while she was praying the rosary. The mother of God did not go out into the "highways and byways". They also serve who only stand and wait. Semper Fi.

You must read the other inserts. The one on page 3 is a gem. We really are going back to the 70's. Here it is:

"Why did a new translation have to happen?

To answer this question, I ask another – what do we think liturgy is? In 1976, Paul Homer wrote in Worship that liturgy is not how people see things, but the purpose is how God sees all people. Our worship, our rituals are “formal”. “Formal” means that they exist to bring about life. When you worship, do you feel alive? The words we say matter! Words give birth; words transform us! Liturgy exists in order that we will abide in God. If we are being transformed, resulting in a deep change within each of us – then why shouldn’t the ritual be changed? We join a liturgy already in progress. The Trinity begins the liturgy: God’s love to Jesus, then Jesus to us, and then us with Jesus to God. We are not changing the form of the ancient liturgy; liturgy transforms us which causes its change! Words form you; words want to make you a better Church!"

We must all pray for St. Louis.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?" Matthew, 23:37.

A Day That Will Live in Glory

Pray for the Four Cardinals: Burke, Caffarra, Meiser and Brandmuller

“You are the ones who are happy; you who remain within the Church by your Faith, who hold firmly to the foundations of the Faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. And if an execrable jealousy has tried to shake it on a number of occasions, it has not succeeded. They are the ones who have broken away from it in the present crisis. No one, ever, will prevail against your Faith, beloved Brothers. And we believe that God will give us our churches back some day."